The DollMaker
by breadsticks
Summary: There was a famous doll-maker who lived in these deep woods. 6927.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: To MyraHellsing with love.

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It was a room full of a thousand, blank, unmoving eyes.

They were arranged according to color, to size, to material, and then to age. There were red ones, blue ones, gray ones, and there were the rarer colors like violet and yellow. And there were glass ones, ceramic ones, wooden ones, and even ordinary buttons. Some were old and chipped and cracked and dusty. Others were gleaming new from those industrial factories. And each was carefully balanced in its own miniature box-like shelf on the walls. The room extended like a long hallway, wooden boxes all in neat little rows.

There were no lights here. And carved on the solitary door for that long room, was an eye, keeping watch.

It opened.

Mukuro the doll-maker came in, holding a gas lamp.

He walked slowly, elegant leather shoes tip-tapping on the worn limestone floor. His white gloved fingers drew a line steadily across the ledges of boxes. He stopped at a particularly green pair. Like wet grass in spring.

He smiled indulgently at them and picked them up.

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Chikusa sat primly on the upholstered armchair in Mukuro's workroom. Around him were various sized tables held aloft by thin chains connected to the ceiling. And on them, like half-finished surgical victims, were dolls and dolls in various stages of being finished. They hung around him like corpses ready for the physician.

He clutched the files in his hands.

He hated staying in this room. It was the reason why Mukuro often talked with him here instead of the many drawing rooms in the east wing.

If that hadn't been enough to spark his claustrophobia, the number of dark wooden cabinets and bright red Chinese drawers around the room practically suffocated him. Even opening the seven austere windows didn't help. It merely threw the room into sharper focus, deepening the depth of the shadows and blinding Chikusa with the glare from the white limestone floor.

Finally, Mukuro came in by a side-door carrying a sleek black box.

He stood up and greeted his friend.

Mukuro nodded at him, smiling. And even though his face pulled the right muscles and tendons, Chikusa couldn't help but worry a bit. That smile…

"Here is the order that cute little weasel in the city ordered. Vero-something—" Mukuro gingerly handed it to Chikusa.

Pained at Mukuro's complete disregard for names, Chikusa continued for him, "Her Grace the Duchess of RedHook."

"Yes, yes. Enough of that green-eyed whore, you have more orders for me?"

Chikusa frowned at his friend but handed the thick folder over anyway. Mukuro grinned, all sharp teeth.

There it was again, Chikusa thought. It wasn't the sight of the teeth that bothered him, but… "Listen, Mukuro…I think…you need to get away from this house for a bit. Have some time off, you know? You know you…You look…a bit tired."

Mukuro flipped though the papers, barely listening to him but nodding anyway. Chikusa, encouraged at this persisted, "I mean, you haven't mingled for a while at the court dances. Why don't you go with me tonight? It isn't very healthy to stay here, cooped up alone—"

The doll-maker slapped the file on a nearby empty table. He gave Chikusa a disgusted glare for that suggestion and said, "…Those _filth _won't know culture even if it danced on their powdered, fat cheeks. So, I'm afraid you'll have to brave those pigs tonight by your lonesome self." With that, he waved Chikusa a dismissal, already planning the next set of dolls he would be making.

Chikusa left, glancing worriedly at Mukuro.

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He picked up a sable filbert brush, between two pianist's fingers that stayed steady in the air. He swiped it against the pile of coral red and thinned it with a bit of turpentine at the side. He leaned forward, eyes peering at the dismantled doll in front of him. Currently, it lacked all four limbs and the lower pelvic region. They would be attached later, until the upper torso was painted already.

The room was dark and behind him, the seven windows were closed shut. Those cherry trees outside were in full blossom, already pregnant with tiny bouquets of light pink flowers. Some were even tumbling down by this time of the year.

He leaned forward, brush in hand—

Feet shuffled behind him.

He ignored it and swept the tip of the brush across the curves of the torso. There were no servants here and currently, he was not receiving anyone. He heard it again, the tread of cloth against the floor. He kept painting and did not turn around. Behind him, the cherry flowers fell.

Minutes passed. He heard no more.

Finally, he turned around.

There was no one there. The windows were shut tight. And all his unfinished projects were accounted for around the various hanging gurneys. The room was still suffocated with shadows. It had been his imagination, again.

He turned back to his doll, not seeing the trail of cherry petals on the window ledges and on the floor.

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_I see you._

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There lived the greatest doll-maker of the world in these woods. His dolls were so finely made that one could see the dusting of freckles and fine hairs on them. His dolls were so exquisitely detailed that one could identify each doll from the palm lines on their hands. His dolls were so breathtakingly life-like that one could almost see them watch and stare and blink at their owners. People whispered that it really was the dolls' eyes.

They looked too forlorn.

But the doll-maker had gone into seclusion within these woods. Oh, he still provided orders, still created doll after doll but nowadays…people avoided him.

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Dust motes danced in the air in front of him as Mukuro slid his eyes open.

He extended a hand and patted the cabinet beside the bed, looking for the blank papers he kept reserved. His hands met silk. He sat up and turned. There were flower petals strewn across the top and they led to the open door.

He kept the windows always closed. He kept the manor doors tightly locked. And he kept all the doors in each room closed every night.

He'd always placed blank papers neatly in a pile on top of the cabinet. Every night, regular, clock-like.

He found them scattered underneath his bed.

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In that house, the rooms were full to bursting with cupboards, drawers, and chests and boxes. All the rooms were full, bursting to the seams. If there was anything, Mukuro could not stand—it was emptiness.

All the rooms—but one, in the attic.

It was locked and the key had long gone missing. Inside this room, the walls were stripped bare and the skeletal framework of the house could be seen. The floor too was ripped, wooden gaps like toothed maws waiting. And there was a chair, leaning drunkenly on its side as one leg was broken. In front of it, was a half-finished brick wall. It covered an adjoining recess in the room, about the size of a small child. Inside, it was empty.

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Mukuro blinked sharp blue eyes and stood up from the nest of white blankets. Several cherry petals drifted down from him and joined their other compatriots on the bedcovers. He surveyed the checkered black and white floor. It was early morning and the light had barely crept in his room. But even in that darkness, he could see the track of flowers. They led to the inside of an iron bronze birdcage, elaborately wrought with leaves and vines. So, his trap had worked.

He stood up, his feet steady on the cold floor.

The birdcage rattled. Cloth rustled as the doll-maker stalked towards his captive.

As dawn streamed through the windows, Mukuro clenched the metal rod between clammy fingers.

And then inside the prison bars of the birdcage, he saw a threadbare ragdoll lying by the walls of the trap. Furious at himself, Mukuro rammed the rod through the cage. Sparks flew and the bars screeched and protested and finally bent aside.

The ragdoll flinched as the rod stopped an inch from its face.

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It was an old ragdoll, Mukuro could see. It was missing one brown button eye and its skin—or the cloth weave that made its skin—was tattered and falling apart. Even the right stump of its leg had a tiny hole. Mukuro lifted the doll to look at the damage at the foot. Three cherry petals slipped from the hole to the floor.

Mud-colored yarn flopped to the side as the doll regarded him, its head tilted.

The man stood up and carried his patient to the room across the hallway. There, amidst a city of drawers and chests and stacked boxes, he picked a blackwood one with a grinning knob. He pulled it open and inside there were various sized needles arranged along rows on dark dusty velvet. He picked one and pulled another drawer free, this time oak with small square knobs. He took a spool of thread, the color of cinnamon for the doll.

Looping the thread through the eye of the needle, he deftly stitched the hole on the ragdoll's foot.

All the while, the doll looked at him with one lone button eye.

After he was done, the doll rubbed insistently at his index finger and slapped its hand against its face at the spot of the missing eye. Mukuro shook his head and murmured, "I am sorry, little one, but…I don't have that shade of brown in any of my buttons." It was true, that brown hue was…eerie.

Like old blood.

The doll drooped and hid its face against his knuckles. As its yarn-hair flipped over, Mukuro saw a word scrawled across its neck in spidery writing. Tsuna.

Its name was Tsuna.

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On the study desk next to a bust of some unknown artist, there was a blue and white china bowl full of cherry blossoms. Mukuro watched as Tsuna tottered over to the rim of the bowl and scoop up several petals. A slit opened in his face and the ragdoll stuffed them in.

Flowers. The ragdoll ate flowers. Mukuro chuckled as Tsuna greedily chomped on his food. Shredded pieces of pink petals fell like confetti around the ragdoll.

Midnight struck. The man looked up, astonished as the main grandfather clock echoed from the main hall. The day had gone by that quickly? He'd barely done anything but watch Tsuna. Oh well, he thought to himself. Something far more interesting happened today that deserved his undivided attention.

A doll that was completely alive.

Staccato piano notes began to echo through the labyrinthine hallways of that mansion. Mukuro turned his head sharply towards the closed door. Tsuna halted eating and placed both hesitant hands on the doll-maker's larger one. There was someone else traipsing around his home and it made Mukuro's blood boil and his teeth gnash.

Tsuna pressed harder against Mukuro's wristbone, insistently.

That music…Why did it tug at Mukuro's memories so violently? He'd heard it before, he knew. A desperate piano piece that changed its pace as swiftly as a hurricane. Mukuro bit his lip and it bled slowly down his chin.

Then Mukuro realized that something was clutching at his thumb quite anxiously. He looked down to Tsuna who was shaking his head—no, no, no.

He humored the doll, "I won't. I promise. I won't go outside my room when that piano plays."

The notes slurred into one as Mukuro bent down and gave a butterfly kiss to Tsuna's upturned face.

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Flooded with shadows and feathery whispers in small corners, Mukuro turned in his bed with eyes wide and unblinking. He could not sleep. Not with all this noise at night.

Through the hours the clock hand pointed at, music flew in a crescendo and its notes kept switching, forte! One forte, two forte, three fort—No, pianissimo, softly so very softly! Ghostly voices argued and disputed and footsteps as light as ballerinas _tap-tapped _on those limestone tiles. There was no one in the house, no one but Mukuro and Tsuna. And that ghostly feast thundered and murmured throughout the empty rooms.

Mukuro wrapped two lanky arms around himself, eyes red and wide.

And the moon was grinning ear-to-ear, laughing to see such a spectacle.

Underneath all that noise, there was a plaintive voice in the attic—sotto voce, sotto voce. A quiet voice, a silhouetted plea unheard in that midnight revelry.

And that scent of cherries in the air was heavy like blood.

The doll-maker laid awake, watching guard over a sleeping Tsuna.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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_I'll cook up ivy, simmer down sweat pea, and sprinkle daisies on your dish._

_For fidelity; for shyness; for innocence—these three are what makes a little fish,_

_Named Tsuna._

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Tsuna sat up on the bed and looked up to Mukuro who was curled around him. He was sleeping, breath shallow like an asthmatic breathing. So he'd finally fallen asleep. Tsuna had worried that the haunting music would keep the doll-maker awake. It was growing fainter, the piano notes. Just another hour, just one more and the night would be over. Tsuna dragged one stump of a hand softly against Mukuro's cheek.

An impossibly large hand caught his in a firm grip. Glassy blue eyes stared at him, blankly. Mukuro tilted his head to the side, also listening to the music. So, it left him another hour then to find the intruder while distracting the doll.

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"Fuu~" Mukuro dangled the long stemmed daisy above Tsuna's batting hands. _So much like a cat…_ He particularly liked how the ragdoll attempted to grasp the white petals by clapping both fingerless hands in the air. He waited a bit more as he swished the flower in Tsuna's face then dropped it into the doll's waiting arms. Tsuna jumped in joy while embracing the daisy. Time for the doll-maker to leave.

He stood up soundlessly and walked towards the door. Promises or no, he would _find_ out who had dropped into his home like a little thief.

Unfortunately, by the time he even touched the doorknob, Tsuna had looked up to find him gone and had scampered as quickly as he could to pull on the hem of Mukuro's pant legs. Quickly getting annoyed, Mukuro swept Tsuna away with his foot. He'd misjudged the force he'd used though and Tsuna hit the side of his dresser with an ominous thump. The doll crumpled into itself.

The tang of cherry flowers hit his nose.

Alarmed, Mukuro stooped down with a shout and cradled the doll in one hand. He looked it over carefully. No holes. Just to make sure though, he said, "Oh, Tsuna. You let such a little thing hurt you?" The doll jerked upright in his hand and smacked his thumb, annoyed. Mukuro laughed at that.

After all, Mukuro was not like the scum on the streets, blood-thirsty and brutal animals…

Morning came and Mukuro was unable to catch the stranger in his home as by then the music had vanished. Still, it didn't stop him from examining room by room for any trace of a break-in. He'd found nothing.

After that, he gathered up other flowers to try and feed to Tsuna. He was curious to see if the doll ate anything else other than cherry petals.

It was rather curious that not once did the thought of his other dolls cross his mind while he entertained his little guest, Tsuna.

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_Snip, snip _went the scissors over a roll of red cotton cloth. In front of Mukuro, was Tsuna with a large ribbon on his head, covering the empty eye and twining around his neck and so. Deft fingers tied two more ribbons to Tsuna's arms. Then the man grabbed ahold of the ribbon ends and began to sew glass beads onto them. He added a bell, grinning to himself. It would be a good way to keep track of the doll.

Night fell and Mukuro and Tsuna both climbed into bed.

For a while, Mukuro waited. The ragdoll was tranquilly still, ribbons keeping him warm. The doll-maker got up even as midnight struck. And the first few bars of the midnight song echoed in the darkness.

A little bell clinked and Mukuro found Tsuna attached to his sleeping shirt. He sighed even as the doll squashed its face against him. He plucked Tsuna and dropped him on to the top of the bed. The doll tried to stand but the ribbons tangled around him and tripped him up, all the while the bell chimed a frantic beat.

It was a good plan, Mukuro thought to himself smugly. It certainly made an amusing sight. And Mukuro was able to reach his door without hindrance.

The bell was still ringing, a panicky clamor.

Mukuro sighed and went back to unravel Tsuna from his mess.

The following morning Mukuro searched high and low but still found nothing. He did find that Tsuna quite liked sweet pea flowers and ivy leaves. And that Tsuna did not appreciate being forced into sheer silky doll gowns. He supposed it was a pity but the frustrated tremulous movements the doll made in protest were more than enough compensation.

Again, he gave no thought to his unfinished work while he played gracious host to Tsuna.

And then it was evening again. But they'd both been exhausted, exploring the gardens outside the whole day. And they both fell asleep as soon as they hit the covers. This time, Mukuro had no prior schemes to pursuit his other unwanted guest.

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A little bell rang for a few seconds while in the darkness and then was abruptly cut off.

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A smudged note and several cardboard puzzle pieces.

All that was left of Tsuna. The doll-maker bent over, crouched into a fetal position and shook violently on that white bed.

After a few more minutes, Mukuro swept a hand over his face and his cheeks pulled his smile viciously wide and said, "Kufu-fu…So, is that how it is?" .

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_Find me and I'll give him back._

The note was unsigned but Mukuro already knew it was his other guest. The musician.

What vile manners, Mukuro had! Why, he hadn't yet introduced himself to this mysterious visitor. He would be sure to come prepared with a number of carving knives at his disposal. Slitting somebody's throat wasn't that hard.

He laid down the puzzle pieces in front of him in a row by size. Lines and numbers and arrows were carved into each piece. It was a diagram, he realized. He found the borders, long straight and thick lines that formed a square. The insides were the problem as he had no prior knowledge of the overall picture. He would have to work inwards, from the outlying frame to the center. Piece by piece, he fitted them in different ways.

Another border inside, this one was with broken lines. Here, several circles hung with some of them colored in. Next to each circle was a number. Then he found the bottom half, a pyramid of stretched boxes. And lastly, the middle was empty and sported only a scratched word: _Perspective._

It was another puzzle in a puzzle.

They were playing hide and seek. And the clue left to him was a diagram, most likely of a room. The word perspective and the pyramid probably referred to stairs or the view from the top of the stairs. A room with stairs and circles on the walls… What were circles that needed numbers? He started listing things he knew that needed numbers or were vaguely round: telephones, wiring labels, lamps, bowls, portraits, tiles, pipe names, windows, mirrors—

He remembered something from childhood.

And then he ran towards the main hall of the house.

Panting as he reached the doorway from the winding corridor that connected all the rooms, he scanned the Great Hall. It was a rectangular room, with a paneled glass-roof that lit the white marble floors like snow. At the other end was the sprawling grand staircase that connected this floor to the fourth one. Along the walls were tapestries and wall carvings that spanned the length of the house, from ground to ceiling.

He walked closer to a smiling angel on the wall. He pushed at its cheek and it swiveled around, revealing a mirror on the other side. As a child, he'd found these slide mirrors all over the house. At one side, they were disguised as stone faces on the wall. But if pushed to the other side, one could find a mirror that could be angled in different ways. After three hours, he found all of them in rows and columns along the walls. Another hour was spent fixing and realigning them. Then he climbed the staircase and stood up at the top. Mukuro looked down on the floor and found another smile stretching his face.

Following the angles written on the diagram for the mirrors, he had made a trompe l'oeil on the floor. A few of the mirrors reflected various parts of the colors on the tapestries onto other mirrors and other mirrors until they finally reflected it all onto the floor. The optical illusion produced on the floor was a descending staircase, effectively echoing the grand staircase. It looked as if the floor had dropped out and the stairs had lengthened downwards. It was a very clever trick.

It still did not tell him where Tsuna was. Mukuro frowned.

He strode down the stairs thinking.

It was several minutes before he realized he'd stepped into the trompe l'oeil. Shrugging, he continued down.

He came to an underground room with four round pools, with a diameter of an adult arm across each. They were edged with stained stone tiles with a few straggling weeds poking through from the ground. He walked closer to one. Three lily pads floated on top and almost hid the words etched a few inches down into the bottom.

Four words, one in each pond: Do you see me?

Mukuro wondered at that. See who?

Do you see me?

He didn't see Tsuna anywhere here. Or was that statement the next clue? See—

It was the room of eyes that was next then. It was quite silly of him to not have thought of it.

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The door was wide open.

Inside, Mukuro noted that every single pair of eyes had been moved to a different position on their perches. They all pointed to a single direction. As he followed along their gaze, he came to a stop in front of a box holding only one single eye.

It was a brown button, the same eerie hue of Tsuna's. Looped through two holes was a string of ragged black yarn.

And all of the doll eyes in that room stood sentry as Mukuro ripped down box after box from their nailed positions on the walls.

It was two hours till the red haze had left Mukuro's mind. He was kneeling on the floor, gasping and sweating. His fingernails were torn, blood and grime streaking his hands. Around him were mounds of doll eyes and broken wood. Even the walls had dents and punctures and holes. Someone had trespassed into his house. Someone had kidnapped Tsuna. That same someone had ripped out Tsuna's only remaining eye. He wondered who had _such_ audacity to actually attack one of his own in his own territory. His face contorted into a sickening leer. There would be a new grave tonight.

There was one sizable gap on the wall where Tsuna's eye had been displayed like a trophy.

Looking through the hole, Mukuro could see another wall made out of coarser wooden slats. _Click._ The two wooden slats that were visible rolled, spinning on invisible horizontal axes. _Click, click, click, click. _They stopped and gave one final click. On them was a pictogram of a sun in a box. The sunroom.

"Fu~fu, I know where you are." Humming, he went off to find some bandages and a weapon. "You can't _hide _from me…"

Having disinfected his hands and wrapped them up in long strips of clean cloth, he'd gone to one of the storage rooms near the back of the house. In an armory, Mukuro had found a trident. He'd given it an experimental twirl on his fingers and had found it as fit as a glove. Like an extension of a hand. He'd approved of it.

There was only one sunroom in this place.

With glass walls framed by wrought iron, it was about twenty-five by forty-three square foot in space. There were five tables with corresponding five chairs around each, all made of glass and corrugated iron. Ivy vines slinked around on the walls and cattails and weeds skulked in clumps through the cracked slate tiles of the floor. Dead leaves in shades of brown and orange made a thin layer on the ground while maidenhair ferns and clovers ransacked the unclaimed space beneath the chairs. And to add insult, there were lurking mushrooms and infestations of moss growing on the few trees in here.

What was new however were the dolls placed around the room. Porcelain dolls he had made in the past. Diminutive male dolls were garbed in black and gray tuxedos and ribbon-like cravats while their elfin female counterparts wore sets of calico dresses and laced scarves. Bonnets, flowered hats and stove-pipe top hats capped coiffures and mops made from cat to sheep to actual human hair. And there were rusted needles and pins stabbed through them.

About the length of a finger, each pinion immobilized various parts of the dolls to their place on the chairs and tables. Faces, hands, torsos and legs…crammed with needles that reminded Mukuro of rotted teeth.

Mukuro noticed that the dolls were arranged into a specific pattern, a tableau. A tea party to be exact. Bone china cups and bowls dominated the surface of the tables. They contained dried flowers and leaves. As his eyes counted and listed the numerous 'pretend food' and their meanings—_candytufts for indifference_, _marigolds for cruelty_—the grandfather clock struck with a bronze pitch in the air one, two, three—_snapdragons for deception—_seven, eight; Mukuro dislodged one of the dolls from its position—_oleander for caution, monkshood to beware—_eleven, twelve, thirteen times; and the doll spasmed and opened its mouth. _"You picked him up from the streets then?"_

Mukuro dropped the doll even as the first few measures of that piano recital began.

Another doll replied, one in a gown, _"Oh yes. The poor child was an orphan, you know? I had to give him a proper life, as my duty as an Estraneo dictated." _Their faces were vacant, empty even while sophisticated words fell from their lips.

Other dolls started chattering, mouths and jaws moving up and down like mechanical clocks while their bodies stayed perfectly still like statues. _"Our own little prodigy, he is. Why, he can play the Masters on that piano already from just two months of tutoring!" _Mukuro was staring at them, wide-eyed. He was murmuring, "—no, no, it's not happening—"

One other started talking, _"A very fitting heir indeed. After all, wasn't your firstborn—a girl? And quite sickly too." _And whose fault had it been, Mukuro wanted to scream. Whose fault was it that she'd been so sickly? The notes climbed higher and higher in pacing, tumbling over one another in anxiety. Those painted faces and doll-like eyes…

The hawk-nosed doll, the self-proclaimed Estraneo, cut in, _"Ah, what can we do, eh? The wife's—well…very unhealthy. I've had to have her shut in, you know. Doctor's orders." _There had been no doctor, no physician, nobody. There had been nobody.

There was a titter of laughter as if mental illness was funny and they continued yammering and chattering like pigs and cattle. Hiding their rot beneath a veneer of make-up and pretty words, they were like puppets dancing to the same tune over and over again.

"_Still, it's quite a blessing. After all, the firstborn, Chrome…is a bit incompetent," _said a square-jawed doll.

Mukuro felt a frission of anger go through him and he yanked the doll up. "Oya, oya. How ugly. Why don't I skin your face _off_ for you?" He rammed the leister through the doll's useless mouth and the ceramic face collapsed into itself.

The music blurred into a crescendo, rising like a tidal wave.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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_This is a charm, my love, a magic spell for you to cast_

_When no longer can you stand fast_

_In darkness._

_Ivy, sweetpea, and daisies and cherry blossom clusters_

_With this recipe of flowers_

_Called Tsuna._

-Said mother to her son.

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_He rammed the leister through the doll's useless mouth and the ceramic face collapsed into itself. The music blurred into a crescendo, rising like a tidal wave._

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It crashed, the music; and the ground rumbled in answer, shaking the very foundations the house was built on. Mukuro felt the floor beneath him move in drunken sways and he flung the doll away from him as he stumbled to his knees. The air vibrated around him as the piano notes warped in pitch. He heard the grind of stone against stone and the crash of glass and ceramic breaking and metallic needles scattering. And the house twisted in on itself painfully.

Then it stopped.

Mukuro stood up from his crouch and stared coldly around him.

So, this was the next puzzle…

They had brutalized his house, bending and contorting and sliding parts like a Chinese wood knot, an interlocking puzzle. The sunroom's walls had moved far back, expanding the space inside to accommodate the puzzle pieces: rooms and platforms and open corridors that had slid in. These interweaving puzzle parts were arranged in an erratic pattern in front of him, some hanging from the ceiling, some attached to the walls without any other visible supports, and some in giant cavities in the floor. Staircases, spiral and straight, criss-crossed the space in between, going up and down and left and right and sideways and several other impossible directions to walk on, like layers of cat's cradle forms. Windows and arched doorways and balconies littered the area: ceiling, ground and wall.

The house had become a maze and the point of mazes was to reach the center.

He stood on the precipice of one of the parts, previously the sunroom. Tables and chairs had toppled over as well as the dolls and dishes on them. Currently, there were six directions to go from here. There were two windows on the ground, a staircase to the right wall, a lower platform near the edge of this puzzle piece, and two doors a foot off the ground on the back wall. He sat down for a bit, working out calculations.

While the house had been rearranged, it looked as if nothing new had been added. It limited the choices he would make for which he was relieved. Then as the case may be, he was starting out with a certain set number of rooms and corridors that he was already familiar with but merely reshuffled in a different pattern. And he knew already what the center was. Those dolls had given him a clue, talking and chattering as they were. That room in the attic…

Mukuro would have to break down the door when he got there. He'd lost the key years ago.

He would have to do this by trial and error, path by path. But…he could still do something to further decrease the number of routes he would take. He stared hard what he could see, from the view of the sunroom puzzle part. He memorized the arrangement of rooms in front him, taking visual clues from the design and decoration of the windows and doors and balconies on them. And he formed a mental map in his head from this, with the sunroom as the beginning point of the labyrinth. The kitchen which had square simple windows was near the left major wall; a few feet to the right of his study that had those seven austere windows; which was above the third parlor room from the east wing that had the finely detailed baroque door and…

Hopefully the maze would not move while he was in it.

After a few minutes of study, he went over what he learned to reinforce the information in his head.

He was unable to identify the attic room as it had no windows, nor any other outlying clues to help him. It only had one door, coarsely hewn and its walls were the very bare framework of the house, all wooden beams and brick. And from where he was standing, there had been no puzzle pieces similar to that. He would have to travel to several of the pieces that he'd been unable to identify due to obscurity made by the distance from his vantage point. He had however managed to recognize about sixty five percent of the layout of the maze and their surrounding pathways. And so resolved, the doll-maker walked to the staircase to his right, dragging one of the surviving chairs behind him.

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_It was dark in here._

_He felt helpless—it was hard to breathe, as if a vise was cinching his neck._

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The stairs winded to the very top, onto a small dais in the air. There was a room hanging above it, with a cellar door Mukuro could reach only with the aid of the chair. He adjusted the chair right beneath the cellar door. He stood on it and pushed at the door. It creaked open and he had to jump to grasp the edges of the door. As he hauled himself up, the chair tripped and fell down the winding staircase, banging against its handrail.

He paid it no mind as he checked over the kitchen he was in.

Eight exits as he'd predicted.

He followed the low-ceilinged corridor in front of him. He came out into one of the open pathways, crossing the empty space to the other side of the maze. He followed along, ignoring the piano attached to the side of one of the hanging rooms. It was playing by itself, its keys dipping in a slurry method, its song now decreasing and increasing in tempo in an auditory illusion. Because space was distorted here, it wasn't unreasonable that music would also bend according to the rules and laws of the space it travelled in.

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_It was dark here and hard to breathe._

_They stood in a neat little row behind the patriarch of the Estraneo family, his personal collection in their little house. He was a hawk-nosed man, imposing in build and posture. He crooked a finger and the eldest stepped forward to sit on the stool in front of the piano. Mukuro spread elegant fingers and began playing mechanically to the sickeningly sweet coos and praises of the guests_

_It was dark here and hard to breathe with someone's hand wrapped around their necks._

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Mukuro found himself in the guestroom that was in styled in beige colors, the fifth one that used to be in the west wing. Five exits again. He jumped from the window to a lower platform that was connected to one of the unlabeled rooms in his mental map. He walked across the side of this lower platform, edging along the puzzle piece's fringe. He came nearer to a row of balconies on an overhanging puzzle piece nearby. He vaulted himself to the nearest one, scraping his elbow on the wall.

He'd already covered about half of the unknown territory but he still hadn't found the attic. He was nearer though.

Mukuro tapped at the door underneath his feet. It opened and he dropped into a carpeted hallway that was placed sideways in the maze. He walked across a few closed doors and came up to a deep blue one. He opened it and tumbled into the guestroom below.

This guestroom had a ceiling door but as it was also placed on its side, the ceiling door could now be found on his right. He pushed at it and climbed through.

He'd found the servants' corridors. It was a tight squeeze as this place was practically in the framework of the house. He could already see the supporting beams here. He walked sideways, past drafty air and crumbling brick walls facing thin wooden walls. Finally, he came to a steep set of stairs that went left and right and right and left. After several turns, he came to a ladder that went up vertically. He crawled up after it. He could hear voices.

He entered one of the storage rooms, filled with boxes and sheet-covered furniture. Three exits. He went out the smallest door onto a balcony. He was in one of the puzzle pieces hanging from the ceiling. He could already see the network of stone arches of the roof above him. He looked to his left and found a row of mezzanines hidden in the shadows of the rafters. He jumped over one, and over another, till he came to a particularly small door. He opened it and saw an airshaft, small enough for a child but an even tighter squeeze for an adult his size.

He could hear the voice a bit clearer now. It was pleading in broken whispers.

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_Accordingly, they moved to the whims and strings of their father under his blank empty eyes, their constant sentinel. And Mukuro had always felt boxed in, caged in, trapped in, closed in, confined in this small dark place they called home._

_This dark feeling of swamped shadows and murky breathes—they called it being helpless._

_Like a doll in a sleek black box._

0101010

Creeping on all fours, he slid through the airshaft and at the end found a smaller door, rough-hewn with the bark lines gnarled and carved by age. He felt tiny mortar gravel hit his face as feet shuffled in the room above him. He reached forward and his fingers closed around the knob and he felt the whole house shift back to position with a dizzying motion.

He'd found the center. Game, set, and match.

He opened the door.

Inside the attic room flooded with shadows, he saw that hawk-nosed Estraneo doll sitting on a chair in front of the half-finished brick wall.

Mukuro shattered the doll's empty face with a swing of the trident. He swung over and over again, hitting the doll again and again and again.

A voice whimpered in the darkness and Mukuro stopped. He turned towards the unfinished brick wall. He stepped forwards and looked into the alcove the wall was hiding. There was a childish form crumpled in on itself in the shadows. He hammered at the wall with the end of the leister's handle, muttering nonstop: get out get out get out get out—

The wall broke, crumbling and collapsing from the combination of old age and the force of Mukuro's blows—

0101010

_It was dark in here._

_Dark and gloomy and dusty—so much so that it was hard to breathe here. He had to keep his mouth wide open, chest gasping and shrinking in itself to accommodate his wildly beating heart—like an asthmatic, his father often scorned—but he was getting dizzy and his hands throbbed with pain._

_Click!_

_His father loomed above him, face empty. He brushed the mortar on with a scraper and then positioned the brick block into place with a decisive click._

_When it was dark, no one would know and no one would see._

_Click, click, click!_

0101010

Inside the oubliette was a skeleton holding onto a motionless ragdoll.

Mukuro sighed and picked up Tsuna, "I found you."

0101010

_There was a fleshy thud and his father collapsed onto the ground._

_His mother panted, wheezing and crying broken-heartedly, holding a trident. She picked up her son from behind the brick wall, whispering, "I found you."_

0101010

Mukuro shoved the remains of the Estraneo doll into the alcove with the skeleton.

"I lay my father, Giocare Estraneo, to sleep, and may whatever god there is—"

And he bricked in both doll and skeleton of his father and he was smiling the whole while through.

0101010

_His mother checked his father's pulse. Then she hauled the man's remains into the alcove while smiling the whole while through._

0101010

Mukuro woke up the next day and stitched back Tsuna's button eye. Then he cleaned the mess in the room of eyes and the scattered dolls in the sunroom. And then he fixed up breakfast, pancakes for himself and cherry blossoms for Tsuna, ensconced in his vest' front pocket. When Tsuna had not moved, he'd assumed that the doll was being finicky. So he'd gone outside and found some ivy, sweetpea, and daisies. He mixed them in with the cherry flowers and pushed the bowl towards the ragdoll.

Tsuna still didn't move.

Hmm...

Then the doorbell rang and he hurried towards the main foyer, leaving the doll beside his bowl of flowers

He found Chikusa waiting impatiently outside with a young brunette fidgeting behind him. And he smiled as Chikusa introduced him to his new assistant, one Tsuna Sawada who'd blushed like a young virgin when he'd grinned wolfishly. And Chikusa smiled as well, happy to see that expression on Mukuro's face and glad that he'd brought Tsuna along.

Later on, Mukuro would make another ragdoll with black yarn hair and blue button eyes. And its name would be Mukuro and it would stay by Tsuna ragdoll's side forever, in sickness and in health and in richness and in poverty.

The world opened up and light streamed in and it was easier to breathe now.

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_Omake:_

"Oh, Mr. Mukuro, you handsome devil, you. I want you to xxx me and xxx me some more on that table and on the wall and—" Mukuro made smoochy noises as he squished both Mukuro ragdoll and Tsuna ragdoll's faces against each other.

The real Tsuna stared behind the squealing doll-maker in shock, numbed. He was wearing a black apron and a black suit, carrying a tray of muffins, tea, and flowers. Damn it. He'd picked another weirdo again.

And so Tsuna was forced into the role of Mr. Mukuro's housewife, cooking and cleaning and wearing female clothes and pampering said handsome devil. And don't forget 'sexy'. Sexy handsome devil. Mr. Mukuro demanded it.

Mukuro nodded the pineapple-haired doll at the actual Tsuna standing a few feet away.

"Not to worry, my little Tsuna. Mr. Mukuro is very rich and could take very good care of you. Now if only you'd wear this custom-made French maid outfit…"


End file.
